


Leaders

by a_taller_tale



Series: RvB Angst War [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Assassination, Death, Gen, Graphic Description, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 02:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9527285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_taller_tale/pseuds/a_taller_tale
Summary: “Please come get me.” The voice hissed and crackled through Grey’s radio waking her from her micro nap around 2AM. It was unmistakably Donald Doyle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Emily Grey and Donald Doyle 'Please come get me.'" Prompt from @loyle-trash for the angst meme.

“Please come get me.” The voice hissed and crackled through Grey’s radio waking her from her micro nap around 2am. 

The voice was weak and trembling and it was unmistakably Donald Doyle, secretary to the Brigadier. 

No surgeon loved their job during war time, but Doyle made it just that little bit of extra special when he came to her twice a week wondering if he should be tested for an endocrine tumor or if his hives meant he was allergic to dust and what he should be doing about that. Did he need an inhaler? Weekly injections? 

Major anxiety disorder and hypochondria. Doyle’s disposition wasn’t suited for a colony at war, but it was probably the demands of being Brigadier Thompson’s secretary that caused him the most stress. That man had a very healthy set of lungs and he liked to make Doyle jump. 

Still, although she could clearly see his pathology and psychoanalysis was one of her hobbies, she didn’t always have the time to devote the attention to Doyle he seemed to crave. 

When you were doing the duties of several doctors, of several _specialties_ , with the rest of your team dwindling by the day, all you could do was hang on to the work by your nails and pray the peace talks with the people who kept blowing up your friends were going well! 

It was possible Doyle had drunk too much during the peace talks. Even alcohol tended to make him anxious. They had talked about that last Wednesday when she was overseeing one of her students intubating a trauma victim who had run afoul of one of the New Republic’s attacks.  


Re-acclimating herself to where she had left off in her charts before falling asleep, she answered the nervous man back as patiently as she could muster. “Mr. Doyle, do you have any idea what time it is? While I would _love_ to look at another rash for you, I’m sure it’s non-life threatening and the last prescription of anti-anxieties can last you until the morning!” 

“Emily,” the man whimpered and though it wasn’t an unusual sound to come from him, she stopped. She listened to his breathing. It was stuttering and sounded slightly wet, but not his usual hyperventilating. He didn’t sound like himself. 

“Where are you, Doyle?” she asked. 

“Please come find me,” he whispered, and didn’t answer again. 

Doyle was prone to panic. It was possible he was just having a panic attack. Grey didn’t feel particularly warm toward Doyle, getting close to anyone was not a very rewarding past time and one she had long since abandoned, but Doyle always came by even when he wasn’t feeling ill to ask after her and misquote Aristotle. In a time of so much misery it was… occasionally refreshing. 

She was already up, still armored, and woke her senior assistant Kent, a kid in her mid-twenties who hadn’t finished school before it shut down. Still, Kent was extremely promising under Grey’s tutelage. They also managed to round up a few soldiers she knew personally, but most of the senior officials and more experienced soldiers were at the peace talks or there to guard. 

It was likely overcautious of her. But Emily Grey had always had excellent instincts and they were flashing alarms now. 

Everyone should have retired from the talks hours ago. 

It was eerily quiet as they crossed the hall toward the main ballroom where all functions were held. The reason was obvious when they entered the antechamber and saw the first of the bodies. 

Head shots. She resisted the urge to check them right away. There was virtually no chance they were alive and the people they had been guarding inside had priority status. 

The soldiers with her threw open the doors into the ballroom. 

The people inside had not gotten past eating dinner. Some were still slumped over their plates, others on the floor. Eyes were open and bloodshot, bloody vomit. Food and drink at most settings was only half gone. The poison had acted quickly. No one had gotten far. No one had even had the chance to call for help. 

They’d been dying— dead for hours. 

Those guards outside were the only ones who had been shot. Witnesses? Or were they plants? Had they been in on this plan? 

She barely registered one of her living companions calling for backup as she started walking up the banquet table looking for signs of survivors. Anyone she could help. Kent wordlessly mirrored her along the other line of tables. 

They were all very dead. 

The higher-ups were a little more terse than the soldiers she had regular contact with, but these were still people she saw every day. It was horrifying how hard it was to feel anything anymore, but this scene was testing the walls she had carefully built between herself and this war. 

There was at least one survivor. Or there had been before it had taken her twenty minutes to get down here. 

_Doyle, where are you?_

A weak cry got her attention. She had accidentally stepped on his hand. 

Doyle was curled up tightly underneath the head table at the right hand of the body that used to be Brigadier Thompson. Eyes were glassy and bloodshot, he was shaking. He had been poisoned too, but he should have been _dead._

The Colonels, the General… they were all dead. The rebels’ general was lying in her own vomit beside him. It didn’t make much sense for the New Republic to take out their own leader pulling a stunt like this but maybe they’d taken this opportunity to stage a coup while taking out Armonia’s center of power. 

Her mind was already working fast on what type of poison this could be, what dosage it would have to have been to work so fast that no one even made a call, how Doyle who was looking like he was going to fly to pieces could have survived with his delicate constitution. Doyle was the only person left alive in the entire room of capitol officials. 

“Doyle, how are you still alive?” 

Snatching her hand out of the air, he squeezed hard enough that she felt her bones creak even through her gloves. He clutched at her hand, eyes wide and shocked. “I-I’m afraid I’m a bit of a picky eater.” 

Despite her hardened heart, she couldn’t help squeezing back. 

“I need a stretcher for General Doyle!” 


End file.
